Alpha Eritrean Engineers Community

October 2010

DREAM BIG
THE INCEPTION

Geometry
Of
Co - operation

Database vs. object oriented systems

List of Companies hiring

E
 CONTENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS EDITORS
DREAM BIG Yohannes GhebreAb, B.A. in Management
BY M EKONEN H ADGU
Adiam Woldegergish, Ph.D
THE INCEPTION
BY Y OSIEF W OLDEMARIAM Aldo Bacuzzi, LEED AP, EIT

DATABASE VS OBJECT ORIENTED SYSTEMS Samson Gonnetz, C.E. and

BY F ILIPOS A BREHA Yosief Woldemariam, E.E.
LIST OF COMPANIES OR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
CURRENTLY HIRING

AEEC | October 2010 2

 Dream big
The month of September marks the completion of my 5th electronics with mechanics, controls and automation with
year working as an Engineer. mechanical design. This project was an opportunity to
utilize all what we learned in Electrical Engineering
To become an Engineer was my ultimate professional courses.
objective in life & have devoted my time and energy for it. I
recall there were times I used to get puzzled whether I was Once I graduated, I was employed by different companies,
wasting my time or using it for a good cause specially when however did not get satisfaction as much as I am getting
forced to fulfill college requirement to learn a common from my current work. My current job is beyond my early
course like Philosophy, History & Art to name just a few. days expectations. It opened me the gate for exposure &
When viewing it in retrospect however, it is never a waste enabled me to travel to four continents and have seen many
of time but rather every lesson contributed to reinforce my places in different countries and cities. Now I realize how
professional knowledge and make me a well rounded far I have progressed accomplishing my long held dreams.
person.
It has always been my desire to find fulfillment on my work
Team play is crucial in every discipline and not less in & it required me planning, working diligently to meet those
Engineering. I learned a lot by working with many people plans, avoiding giving up by all means during hard times
from different professional back grounds especially during proved fulfillment of the dream I had. Along the way I have
laboratory group work and most importantly in the final come to know interesting people in the field of Engineering
project. Having worked with all my classmates and having in trade shows, conferences and workshops which is vital
an experience of being a member of different project teams additive to self esteem.
helped me prepare for my job interviews and accomplish
any Engineering tasks that I was and still getting at work. Overall the experience I have acquired so far has
Especially the undertaking of the final project gave me and emboldened me to envision bigger than what I actually can
my team enormous experience working in hectic and at present. Aiming high helps to remain focused and
stressful environment. It was an assignment which required energetic!
dealing not only with individuals who have different
behaviors but also required remembering all what we have As someone who worked very hard and experienced the joy
learned and apply the knowledge on making the project a of my dreams coming true, I am a living testimony to what
success. In general final project summarizes most of the they call this country, USA, as “a land of opportunities.” So,
course we took. to my readers I say dream big and keep your dream alive by
working hard and I assure you there is nothing that you
My final project that I built was Micro Mouse Robot. I could not accomplish in life.
chose this project specifically because it combined

~ Mekonen Hadgu, EE

"Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the means to the answer to all
questions."
~ William Allin

~ Vince Lombardi

AEEC | October 2010 3

 The inception
In the early 2006, African and Hispanic American Engineering
students were holding meetings. As members of both
organizations we were attending in each of their meetings. Both
organizations were instrumental in assisting us with information
on getting financial aid, grant, attending and traveling for
workshops and encouraging us in helping one another with
solving Engineering problems by visiting the rooms assigned for
such activities. Indeed, we were visiting the rooms from time to
time. Moreover, nine of us, seven engineering and two business
students were also studying, encouraging, helping, sharing
information and supporting one another in every way we could
on a regular bases.
While we were engaged in an intense studying regimen in
our school days, we used to see South American, Middle
Eastern, and especially Asian descendents studying and
sharing information on regular bases and perform superbly
well during exams. It is during those times that we started
imagining of an organization of our own in which every
Eritrean Engineer and prospective Engineers would
participate and be instrumental in sharing and providing the
essential information needed for everyone to excel. We were
very optimistic and full of ambition. For such an ambition to
be materialized we needed to come up with a plan to build
an association from scratch or start building on what we
have already started as a study group. Obviously, we chose
the latter.
As we kept thinking and discussing of such idea of an
organization individually and collectively, the idea got
acceptance amongst most of us. Then we started contacting
some of our seniors already in the job market how they view
establishing this kind of association and the response was
just terrific, and the discussion provided comfort to those of
us who were finally able to understand that we were not
alone longing for such organization.
Finally the inception of the AEEC came to reality in the fall
of 2009, exactly one year before issuance of our second
issue of AEEC magazine. The idea of creating the
professional association however is, as fresh and appealing
today as when it was first imagined in our collage years, and
its message of sharing information is no less
AEEC | October 2010
moving and significant than having a magazine (AEEC
magazine) which became instrumental as a delivering
mechanism for information, ideas and experience of each
other.
We have greatly enjoyed this period of laying the foundation
for AEEC and issuing its complimentary magazine. We have
prized the privilege of trying in some way to add to the
effectiveness of Alpha Eritrean engineers Community.
We would be stretching the truth if we were to tell you it
was easy to see AEEC publishing its online magazines. It
was never easy. If it wasn’t for your unswerving support it
would have remained as a fragment of our imagination. So,
we would like to express to you our great appreciation for
the cooperation which you have given to us. Your support
has not been passive or mere approval; it has been
spontaneous, active and enthusiastic.
We are also grateful for the founders of AEEC who
willingly dedicated their time and energy for the growth of
Alpha Eritrean Engineers Community and its complimentary
magazine. But as its name implies AEEC is a community &
should be a platform of communication for all Eritrean
Engineers. Please note AEEC is open for your participation
and we would be honored to air your professionally
enriching articles.
~ Yosief Woldemariam, EE
Hard to reach doesn’t have to mean hard to do
A
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Bringing the best and the brightest together
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 Database vs. Object Oriented Systems
In today’s highly competitive world, industries and
financial establishments have been struggling to find best
and secure technological solutions to maintain and store
valuable and critical data. With some limitations the
Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) has
been the dominant tool to store and maintain critical data.
However, it was not until most recent that the alternative
Object oriented database came to exist to help resolve
some of the limitation of RDBMS. The goal of this paper is
to discuss and shade light on the similarities and
difference between the relatively new Object Oriented
Database System (ODBMS) in relation to the traditional
RDBMS.
I was exposed to RDBMS when I was freshman in Wichita
State University and later I had a chance to actually apply
it in the real world when I worked for USAir. RDBMS data
is structured in database tables, fields and records. Each
RDBMS table consists of database table rows and each
database table row consists of one or more database table
fields. RDBMS store the data into collection of tables,
which might be related by common fields (database table
columns). RDBMS also provides relational operators to
manipulate the data stored into the database tables. Most
RDBMS use SQL as database query language. DBMS have
advanced into the Internet and Web Age. Stored data is
widely being accessed through a Web browser.
RDBMS is relatively less complex to use especially for
someone who does not have a good understanding of
the object oriented paradigm. The relatively less
complexity is probably the main reason for RDBMS to
have been widely applied and very successful; however,
its success is limited to certain types of applications. As
business users expand to newer types of applications,
and grow older ones, their attempts to use RDBMS
encounter the limitations; this limitation is encountered
AEEC | October 2010
when extending information models to support
relationships, new data types, extensive data types, and
direct support of objects. Similarly, the limitation
appears when deploying in distributed environments
with complex operations. Attempts to scale relational
technology lead to an explosion of tables, many joins,
poor performance, poor scalability, and loss of integrity.
RDBMSs perform perfectly adequately for many types of
applications, particularly in the regular Information
Technology domain.
ODBMS sometimes is a database management system
that supports the modeling and creation of data as
objects for example a car, person etc… The concept of
object came from the object-oriented programming
(OOP) that for instance an Address object can be
constituted of home number, street name, city name,
state name, country name and mail zip code which in
turn can have a child object of sub-addresses. objects are
the things you think about first in designing a program
and they are also the units of code that are eventually
derived from the process. In between, each object is
made a relate for instance to personal information to
home address that could be one to one or one to many
relationships. That is the integration of object-oriented
programming and databases, persistent object life cycle
management, and object oriented persistence
technologies. Each object is an instance of a particular
element in a relationship. In their influential paper, The
Object-Oriented Database Manifesto, Malcolm Atkinson
and others define an ODBMS as follows: An object-
oriented database system must satisfy two criteria: it
should be a DBMS, and it should be an object-oriented
system, i.e., to the extent possible, it should be consistent
with the current concept of object-oriented
programming languages.
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A loose analogy is that RDBMS companies are like the
manufacturers of internal combustion engines and the
ODBMS companies are like the manufacturers of jet
engines. The two technologies service different markets,
but there is a small degree of overlap. In general,
ODBMSs can service all of the applications that an
RDBMS could be used for, but the reverse is not true, at
least not with anything like the same performance or
ease.
The main elements of RDBMS are based on Ted Codd’s
13 rules for a relational system, the concept of relational
integrity, and normalization. The three fundamentals of
a relational database are that all information must be
held in the form of a table, where all data are described
using data values. The second fundamental is that each
value found in the table columns does not repeat.
AEEC | October 2010
Benefits of RDBMS are that the system is simple, flexible,
and productive. Because the tables are simple, data is
easier to understand and communicate with others.
RDBMS are flexible because users do not have to use
predefined keys to input information. Also, RDBMS are
more productive because SQL is easier to learn.
Generally speaking, if one can solve the problem with an
RDBMS without a lot of effort and also achieve the
performance, throughput and scalability that you need
then there's no compelling reason to use an ODBMS The
more positive experiences you have with whichever
data base you select, the more you become comfortable
with and as you get skilled your adaptability become
flawless. However, there are always special cases where
one is preferable over the other.
~ Filipos Abreha, Computer E.
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AEEC | October 2010 7

About the authors
Mekonen Hadgu (hmekonen@hatmail.com)
earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from
San Francisco State University. Currently he is Got an Engineering experiences to share?
working with Nordson March as field Service
Engineer. All you need to do is put them in writing
Yosief Woldemariam (Meharigrw@yahoo.com) with not less than 250 and not more than
earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from 650 words. We will put them on
San Francisco State University. Currently he is
subsequent issues.
working with Syska Hennesy Group,
Engineering Counsalting Firm as designer.
Send them to:
Filipos Abraha (afiliposa@yahoo.com) holds <Alpha0909@gmail.com>
Master's Degree in Software Engineering from
Wichita State University and currently he is
working with The Boeing Defense Space &
Security as designer and embedded real time
software developer.

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